A fast, efficient and reliable means of communicating data in a multi-user system is desirable for many applications. A need for such methods arises when multiple pieces of data (from multiple sources) need to be quickly read by a receiver. One particular application of such technology is in the electronic identification of multiple items.
The electronic identification industry is important for numerous commercial and military applications, including real-time item tracking and inventory. Such uses can greatly increase operational efficiency in a myriad of scenarios, including virtually all of those involving some form of manufacturing, warehousing, distribution and retail. The ability to quickly and efficiently perform accurate real-time inventory tracking can greatly reduce waste in many forms, including, but not limited to, the misplacement of items, over- or under-stocking of items, and item theft.
Currently, the electronic identification industry relies heavily on manual (light-based) scanning to identify a plurality of items, where each item is assigned a product code. The Universal Product Code (UPC) system is currently in widespread use throughout the United States retail industry. Manually scanning items, however, is extremely time-consuming and highly prone to human error.
Thus, there exists a need to provide a method for fast, efficient and reliable transmission of data from multiple sources to a receiver. More specifically, there exists a need to read such data as quickly as possible for all possible operating cases in an RFID system. Such scenarios may include cases where the number of tags ranges from very low to very high, or cases where the communications channel conditions range from very poor to very good. There exists a need for a method to adapt the data transmission system to all of these cases, in order to increase system throughput and efficiency.